Lowell Offering

We little girls were fond of reading these clippings, and no doubt they were an incentive to our thoughts as well as to those of the older girls who went to the Improvement Circle and wrote compositions.

A year or two after this I attempted poetry, and my verses began to appear in the newspapers, in one or two annuals, and later in the Lowell Offering.

In 1846 I wrote some verses which were published in the Lowell Journal, and these caused me to make the acquaintance of the sub-editor of that paper, who afterwards became my life companion.

I speak of this here because in my early married life I found the exact help that I needed for continued education, the leisure to read good books sent to my husband for review in the quiet of my secluded home.

The mill girls went regularly to meeting and Sabbath school, and every Sunday, the streets of Lowell were alive with neatly dressed young women going or returning therefrom.

Their fine appearance on the Sabbath was often spoken of by strangers visiting Lowell.

Dr. Scoresby in his, quote, "American Factories and their Operatives," unquote, with selections from The Lowell Offering, holds up the Lowell mill girls to their sister operatives of Bradford, England, as an example of neatness and good behavior.

Indeed, it was a pretty sight to see so many wide awake young girls in the bloom of life clad in their holiday dresses, quote, "Whose delicate feet to the temple of God seem to move as if wings had carried them there," unquote.